Last month, we looked at several stylistically diverse examples of musically appealing ways in which famous bands, recording artists and songwriters have used first-inversion chords (specifically triads) in some of their most celebrated songs. First-inversion means with the chord’s third being the lowest note in the voicing, or “in the bass.” I’d now like to continue with this worthwhile topic and cite a few more examples of compositionally effective ways in which first-inversion chords have been used in popular music.
You could, of course, just use first-inversion chords sort of randomly or chromatically — as Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder did to great effect in “Better Man” — using the movable shape illustrated in FIGURE 3, and fingerpicking the strings to obtain the sparse, open-sounding voicing. Notice how much musical warmth and weight the low third in the bass provides.
A more dramatic way to use a first-inversion chord is to create a chromatic bass-line “walk up” from the V chord of a major key to the relative minor, or vi minor, chord, with the insertion of a secondary dominant with the third in the bass. A good, well-known example of this can be found in the pre-chorus of Oasis’ mid-Nineties hit “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” where the progression, which is in the key of C overall, goes from an open G5 chord to an unusual and clever voicing of E7/G#. This utilizes the open D string in conjunction with three fretted notes, to Am, as is FIGURE 4.
The late Jeff Buckley employed this same “tug on my heart strings” move near the end of each verse in his impassioned cover of the Leonard Cohen song “Hallelujah;” for which the guitarist, using a capo at the sixth fret, plays an open D chord, followed by B7/D#, which begs compellingly for a resolution to Em, as is FIGURE 5. Jon Bon Jovi’s piano-driven cover of the song, performed in the key of B, features the same move, in this case from F# to Eb/G to G#m (that second chord, for you theory sticklers, is technically called D#/Fₓ — “D sharp over F double sharp”). Interestingly, in Cohen’s original reading of the song, which he recorded in the key of C, the songsmith follows the same basic progression but doesn’t make use of the first-inversion with the secondary dominant chord, in this case E7. So it’s essentially the same three chords as those cited earlier in “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” minus the G# bass note in the E7 chord.
That other great American songwriter, James Taylor, employed this first-inversion, secondary-dominant move to the relative minor chord in some of his classic songs, such as “Carolina in My Mind,” “Shower the People” and “Your Smiling Face,” using voicings like those illustrated in FIGURES 6 and 7. In the latter example, JT masterfully chains together root-position, first-inversion and second-inversion triads to create a chromatic bass climb that’s pretty much the opposite of what Paul McCartney did in the verses to “Maybe I’m Amazed,” which we looked at last time.
Senior Music Editor "Downtown" Jimmy Brown is an experienced, working guitarist, performer and private teacher in the greater NYC area whose professional mission is to entertain, enlighten and inspire people with his guitar playing and lessons.
